A SERMON PREACHED in the CHAPEL OF THE ASYLUM FOR FEMALE ORPHANS, AT THE ANNIVERSARY MEETING OF THE GUARDIANS, On MONDAY the Sixteenth of MAY, 1768.
PUBLISHED at Their REQUEST.
By the Revd . THOMAS FRANCKLIN, VICAR OF WARE, IN HERTFORDSHIRE, And CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO HIS MAJESTY.
LONDON: Printed for W. BUNCE, Russel-Street, Covent-Garden; R. BALDWIN, Pater-noster-Row; T. DAVIES, Russel-Street; J. WILKIE, St. PAUL'S Church-Yard; and J. WALTER, Charing-Cross. 1768.
PRICE SIX-PENCE.
TO THE QUEEN,
MADAM,
WHILST your MAJESTY is perpetually employed in the relief of private distress, spreading your bounty on every side, and endeavouring to conceal the generous hand that bestows it, permit me, in the name of a Public Charity, to pay the due tribute of public thanks for the kind favour and protection with which you were pleased to honour the ASYLUM; a protection which we with pleasure consider as the foundation of our present success, and the earnest of future prosperity. The following pages have no pretentions to any merit, but that of producing to general view, those peculiar and distinguishing circumstances which recommended this institution to your MAJESTY's attention, and which may serve, amongst many other instances, to convince the reader that the sure and only method to
obtain
the ROYAL favour is to
deserve
it.
That a life so essential as your MAJESTY's to the welfare and happiness of thousands may be long continued to us in uninterrupted health, peace, and felicity, is the sincere wish of every English heart, and the constant prayer of,
MADAM,
YOUR MAJESTY's Most faithful Subject, And Servant, Thomas Francklin.
Great Queen—Street,
June
12th, 1768.
HOSEA. c. xiv. v. 3.
In thee the Fatherless findeth Mercy.
AMONGST all those virtues and perfections which contribute to the lustre and dignity of human nature,
Charity
hath ever held the first and most exalted station; as the best and truest representative of the most high God, his Vice-gerent upon earth, commission'd, as it were, by him to remove the wants, soften the calamities, and mitigate the sorrows of mankind.
The age we live in can not▪ I fear, with any propriety be stil'd the age of wit or wisdom, of learning, piety or virtue: but it may perhaps not undeservedly be called the age of charity; never was there a time wherein so many hospitals, schools and foundations have been raised and supported amongst us: it is indeed astonishing, when we consider the variety of channels through which our bounty hath flowed, to reflect how full the current is in every one of them; but what can not the gracious providence of God maintain and preserve! the same divine power which so marvellously filled the widow's cruise of oil hath from time to time supply'd and replenish'd this perennial fountain; this copious stream still glideth thro' our fertile soil,
blesseth the earth with her increase,
and
watereth the furrows thereof.
In obedience to the commands of our great Lord and master, who so frequently recommends the poor and deserted to our care and protection,
Charity-schools,
for the maintenance and protection of indigent children, have been erected, and liberally supported in every part of this kingdom, and the good effects of them are universally felt and acknowledged: but in every human institution, there must be some human, weakness, some mark of the imperfection of our nature; in a nation like ours, and more especially in the great center of it, there must always be a perpetual vicissitude of manners; new accidents, new vices and follies will produce new wants and calamities, which will consequently require new resources to guard against, or remove them: large, numerous and extensive, therefore, as our charity-schools were, they have been found in some measure inadequate to the purposes for which they were designed, and objects have of late years presented themselves which even this wide circle of benevolence cou'd not comprehend: they did not (cou'd not indeed from the nature of their constitution) comprehend a set of helpless and miserable beings, excluded by their peculiarly unhappy circumstances from the benefit of every public institution, barren and leafless branches, cut off, as it were, from the tree of life, which, deprived of all moisture and nourishment, must inevitably wither and decay: these principally consisted of ORPHAN and DESERTED GIRLS, who, after wandering about for a time in the utmost misery and distress, soon perished with hunger, or, which was still more to be lamented, fell an early sacrifice to vice, infamy, and prostitution.
An evil so dreadful and so alarming called for a speedy and effectual remedy, as the effects of it were becoming every day and every hour more fatal to society: when it pleased the gracious providence of God to inspire the breasts of a few
searchers after Good
with the design of erecting an ASYLUM for these wretched outcasts, a haven of rest and safety from the cruel storms of this world which beat so hard upon them; this truly noble and benevolent purpose was immediately put in execution, and hath, by the prudent oeconomy of its directors, and the liberal bounty of the subscribers to it, been enabled to banish all those evils which it was meant to remove, and to answer every good end which it was intended to promote.
To bring good out of evil, to render the miseries and disstresses of mankind, productive of virtue and happiness, is doubtless one of the noblest acts which human wisdom can contrive, or human power can execute, as it is the nearest and most exact imitation we can aspire to of the Divine Being. That this is most evidently the design and endeavour of that amiable charity which I am here called upon to recommend, will appear indisputable to every impartial mind, that shall but for a moment reflect on the few following particulars.
And first then,
The principal and peculiar recommendation of this excellent charity is, that here
the fatherless findeth mercy.
All these unfortunate little ones whom you now see before you, are ORPHANS; and surely a more melancholy or distressful circumstance cannot be conceiv'd; left in their tender infancy to the mercy of a cruel multitude, and the bad examples of a licentious age; without a parent to guide or instruct them, without a shepherd to
feed them in green pastures,
or
lead them beside the waters of comfort;
this, my brethren, is
a voice crying in the wilderness
which we must all hear; this is a call on our humanity, which we can never resist; those to whom God hath graciously continued the life of their parents, sensible of so inestimable a blessing, must feel for, and compassionate the wretched beings who are depriv'd of it; and, on the other hand, if there are now before me, as I doubt not but there are, some who still lament a father's care, or bewail a lost mother's tenderness, they, I am satisfy'd, will anticipate every thing that could be urged in their favour, they will reflect and consider, what a miserable, what a deplorable condition those must be in, who are deprived of this, and withal, of every other consolation.
Parents, we know, there have been, and to this day are, so totally void of all feeling and humanity, as even to destroy their own offspring: can we wonder then to hear of others, who, in opposition to the dictates of nature, totally desert and forsake them? such was the wretched and truly pitiable condition of many, whom this ASYLUM hath relieved: it hath indeed sometimes happened, that these miserable ORPHANS were left in their tender infancy, by parents who could not possibly avoid it: their fathers have been hurried from them by cruel necessity, or perhaps perished abroad in the service of their country, whilst their unhappy mothers have fallen a sacrifice to disease and penury at home; thus doth this useful charity, whilst it relieves
private
distress, promote
public
happiness, and discharge the debt of gratitude, which society owes to the industrious parent, by that support and protection which it affords to his afflicted
Child.
But the children educated in the ASYLUM are not only ORPHANS, but what will render them still more proper objects of our compassion,
Female
ORPHANS. The most powerful argument in favour of this excellent institution is doubtless its amiable partiality to that sex which ever lays so warm, so irresistible a claim to our support and protection: a sex by nature left more weak and defenceless than our own, liable to more dangers and temptations, less able to struggle with difficulties, or to oppose the malice and subtlety of a corrupt and designing world. The female mind is formed in a soft and tender mold, peculiarly susceptible of impressions, and as remarkably tenacious of them: how much then doth it import their future happiness, that the first which they receive shou'd be fair and good, and that to keep the waters from corruption, they should be sweet and untainted at the fountain!
Beauty, we know, is an universal light, it shineth, like the sun, with equal lustre on the palace and the cottage: it is the free gift, the patrimony, as it were, of beneficent nature, who dispenses her bounties to all her children without regard to rank or condition: but beauty, as experience teaches us, is sometimes a dangerous and fatal pre-eminence; all the advantages of birth and education, have proved insufficient to save the distinguished possessors of it from ruin and destruction: even where parents have been near to guard, and friends to admonish, too often hath it fallen a sacrifice to the impulse of passion, or the arts of the betrayer; but if affluence and knowledge are ensnared, how shall poverty and ignorance escape? it is ever a maxim with the wicked that guilt like sorrow is lighten'd by participation, and that a companion in our crimes will palliate and diminish the iniquity of them; hence it ariseth that the prostitute and abandon'd part of the sex, are ever active and vigilant to seduce the young and innocent, and lead them into the paths of vice and folly; to what certain, what unavoidable misery then must be exposed those unhappy females who are left in their tender years to all the snares and temptations, all the arts and seductions of the profligate and designing! the arrows of misfortune are in their sides, they are marked out as it were from the herd, for immediate destruction, and fly like stricken deer to the ASYLUM's friendly covert, to hide themselves from their cruel pursuers, vice, infamy, and ruin. In behalf of objects like these, I need not, I am satisfied, address myself to those who are of the same sex with themselves: your sympathetic hearts, untaught and uninstructed, will dictate all that can be said, and all that can be done: as women you will pity them, as mothers you will feel for them, as Christians you will, I doubt not, contribute to relieve and support them.
But, that we may view this noble structure in every light that can best display its beauty, symmetry and proportion, let us consider what benefits and advantages may arise to the Community from this excellent institution: let us consider that the ASYLUM, in grateful return for that support and protection which it receiveth from us, may, and already hath produced a number of industrious, conscientious and faithful servants: a circumstance in which our domestic ease and happiness is nearly and intimately concerned; never perhaps was there a time when they were more wanting than at present, owing, no doubt, to that universal spirit of dissipation, that reigning love of pleasure, that impatience of labour and restraint which hath of late spread itself thro' all ranks and degrees: whilst those accept the office of servants who are either unable or unwilling to perform it, the evil I fear must continue; how valuable therefore, and how truly laudable is an institution which tends to remove so general a calamity, which teaches the children entrusted to its care (and that at an age when they are most capable of learning) every useful branch of houshold oeconomy, instructs them in every thing that they
ought
to know, and, which is perhaps peculiar to this charity, in nothing which they ought
not!
Many of our charities, it must be acknowledged, have erred greatly in this important particular: with parental affection they have adopted parental weakness also; have counteracted their own designs, and by excessive tenderness and indulgence ruin'd those unfortunate beings whom they meant to preserve; too much care hath frequently been taken of their intellects and too little of their morality; and their education been thus render'd too extensive and exalted for that rank and situation in life which they were designed for: an error which our ASYLUM hath most industriously endeavour'd to avoid; we imitate not the boasted seminaries of the Romish church, where the moment their recluse votaries are set apart for the service of God, they become useless to society: whilst ours, on the other hand, are taken
from
the world, only that they may be of the greater service
to
it; remov'd from the vices and temptations, and at the same time reaping all the advantages, participating the improvements, and practising the duties and relations of public life.
It is with the greatest pleasure and satisfaction I have heard, that many of the children here educated, have by their extraordinary industry and application, by sobriety, decency, and every method in their power, endeavour'd to repay the goodness of their benefactors; a circumstance very proper to be mentioned on this occasion, as it reflects honour on the mistress who instructs them, on the governours who preside over this charity, and indeed on every person who contributes towards the maintenance and support of it.
When these, thus happily, thus seasonably, protected ORPHANS, shall leave their retreat, and come out into the world, when experience shall have taught them, what snares they have avoided, what dangers they have been protected from; when they shall see how many of their unhappy fellowcreatures, perhaps the companions of their infancy, for want of this kind shelter, have fallen an easy prey to vice, and sunk into the loathsome abyss of sin and misery; how will their hearts overflow with gratitude to their generous patrons, with what eyes of tender acknowledgement, and heart-felt satisfaction will they look back on these delightful seats of innocence and peace!
Here they are sheltered from the world, before they can possibly have received any fatal infection from it; before the soft wax can have taken any bad impression: their duty towards God, towards their benefactors, towards the community to which they belong, are here the first things they learn, and consequently stand the fairest chance of being the last things which they will forget; those can never be bad servants who are good women, and pious Christians: such, (and such only we endeavour to send out) will be industrious from habit, sober from example, virtuous from principle, honest and faithful from conscience, and from Religion.
To Religion indeed, that noblest foundation of every good, we doubtless owe our great, and, I may perhaps add almost unparallell'd success;
except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it; except the Lord keepeth the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
Charity, we know, is the natural offspring of devotion, and love of man springeth from the love of God. To the erection and enlargement of
The Chapel.
this structure
we are, I am satisfy'd, indebted in a great measure for the encrease and enlargement of those
frequent and liberal
contributions which have enabled us to support it; from this fountain of living waters have flowed all those refreshing streams of benevolence, that from time to time have water'd our fertile garden; and whilst the word of God is here preached, as it hath hitherto been, in purity, truth, and simplicity, without ornament, pomp or parade, untinctur'd by modern ostentation, and unleavened by modern enthusiasm, the objects of our care and attention, will I doubt not, continue to reap the blessed fruits of it.
The Lord,
we read in Scripture,
was with Joseph, and all that he did prospered in his hand:
the Lord we trust, my brethren, is with
us
also: thanks be to the great giver of every good gift, our success has exceeded even our fondest hopes, and our most sanguine wishes cou'd scarce have formed a more delightful prospect than that which is now before us: the duty therefore, of this day, ariseth from the united principles of gratitude and benevolence; we assemble in this place to return our unfeigned thanks for past mercies, and to implore the continuance of divine favour; the heat and labour of the war is over, and we meet in joy to celebrate our victory, the noblest of all victories, a victory over the human heart, over the selfish cruel passions of avarice and inhumanity: may the triumphs we already boast be the harbingers of more extensive conquests still behind, and our past success prove the auspicious omen of future prosperity!
Let us then with an eye of pleasure and complacency contemplate the beautiful picture that is now before us: let us behold Benevolence surrounded by her attendant virtues, administering to the necessities, and cultivating the minds of these happy children: temperance presides over their meals, humility cloaths, industry instructs, and modesty adorns them: these are the matrons that superintend, these are the guardians that watch over and protect them: these will plead strongly for the precious charge entrusted to them; these, we trust, will intercede for their beloved care, will soften the hearts of the obdurate, open the hand of the tenacious, and melt even the most unfeeling into tenderness and commiseration.
True charity, my brethren, like true beauty, wants not the paint of art to set off, or the gorgeous robes of flattery to adorn her; to be distinguished she need but to be seen, to be admired, she need but to be known: I have only endeavoured to point her out unto you, and may venture to leave the rest to your own generous hearts: many perhaps there may be, many I doubt not but there are now before me, whom a larger share of the good things of this world hath rendered more able, many whom the grace of God, joined to their own serious reflections, hath made more willing than ever they were before, to
distribute;
many there are who wait but to know to
whom they should do good,
before they do it; such, I am satisfy'd, the little imperfect sketch, which I have drawn of this institution, will induce to contribute towards its maintainance and support.
Amongst all the fair daughters of charity, those
polished corners
of our christian
temple,
the ASYLUM, seems to boast superior charms, and to shine forth with distinguish'd lustre: like that innocence which she preserves, and that virtue which she protects; she may be betrayed, suspected, or traduced, but like them, she will still be cherished by the good, and received by the worthy: whether we consider the distresses which she relieves, or the miseries which she prevents, the blessings which she bestows on the present age, or the felicity which she insures for the future, she must appear in every light most amiable and praise worthy; her form is pleasing, her manners plain and unaffected, her religion pure and undefiled: in a word, she attracts by her simplicity, engages by her behaviour, encourages by her tenderness, animates by her example; as if it were her ambition, and a nobler she cannot have, to imitate in all things that gracious and benignant QUEEN who hath condescended to patronize and protect her.
To conclude then;
Whatever may be our state or condition in this life, we are all of us, like those whom I have been here endeavouring to recommend to you, subject to dangers, temptations, and distress: no rank or station, how exalted soever, can totally exempt us from those sorrows or misfortunes which are the common lot and portion of mortality: who is there amongst us, that may not sometimes wish for an ASYLUM? shall we not then, whilst we have it in our power, bestow that shelter and relief on others which we ourselves may one day stand in need of? let us shew mercy to the fatherless, if we expect it from the father of mercy; so shall we preserve to our minds that peace and tranquility, which alone can render us easy and contented in this life, so shall we find rest to our souls, in that bless'd ASYLUM of peace and happiness, which God hath prepared for the virtuous, the charitable, and the benevolent, in that which is to come.
FINIS.